"Oh. All right." Anna's eyes darted around as if she wasn't sure what to do next. I had never been so rude, and even if I'd punched her, I couldn't have hurt her worse. She lowered her head and backed off the lot. "Well, good-bye, then."
I stood in place until she disappeared down the alley. Only when I was sure I was alone did I wheel the dirt and sheet to the pond and start the wash again. This time I needed more privacy than ever from the road and from the watchtower and even from Fritz. Because I was certain I had just lost a friend forever, and the sadness of that was more than I could bear.
Lost goods, lost something; lost honor, lost much; lost courage, lost all. -- German proverb
I spent the early evening back in the tunnel with Fritz. After clearing through the rock, he had made good progress that afternoon.
"It's to the point where we have to know how much farther to go," Fritz said. "You need to get into Anna's apartment and look at the Death Strip."
I had already told him about her visit that afternoon. If only I could go back and redo that moment in a smarter, kinder way. "She won't let me in," I said. "Not now."
"You have to get inside," he insisted. "There is nothing more important with this tunnel than knowing when it's safe to go to the surface. If we come up too early, we'll be in the Death Strip. And if we tunnel longer than necessary, we might run out of time or get caught."
"I'll find a way." Somehow. I exhaled a harsh breath as dread began to fill me. It was bad enough for me to use our friendship for such a dangerous reason. But the friendship was obviously over, and getting into her apartment now would be a product of lies and manipulation. On the few nights when I didn't crash into my bed asleep, I prayed that God would forgive me for all the lies I'd had to tell on our path to freedom.
Fritz said he didn't pray for forgiveness because he didn't consider those lies a sin. He believed it was wrong to lie, but not as wrong as keeping us trapped behind a concrete wall. He said that instead, he prayed for all those people who were forced to serve a country they didn't believe in. Good people who held guns against us through no fault of their own.
"What about the people who want to hold those guns?" I asked.
"I don't pray for them," he said. "I can't."
And I decided in that very same moment that I would. Somebody had to.
Not long before we intended to quit for the evening, Fritz began using the shovel as a wedge to pry out a rock lodged deep into the dirt. We pressed down on the handle together, but the rock was more embedded than we had expected. And now he had pushed the blade so far into the dirt that it was stuck too. Neither would budge.
"Let go," Fritz said. "Let me try something."
He grabbed the handle with both hands, then jumped in the air and let his full weight come down on the wood. Something cracked and Fritz fell to the ground.
"No!" Fritz leapt to his feet again with the broken shovel handle in his hands. I aimed our flashlight at the rock and sure enough, the splinters from the other end of the handle stuck out of the earth like a porcupine's quills.
"We can get another shovel," I said. "They'll have others at the store."
"Shovels are expensive, Gerta." He ran a hand through his hair, then kicked at the wall. "It'll take the rest of the money from Papa."
But it couldn't. We had agreed the rest of the money would be for groceries. In fact, we were quitting early tonight to buy them on our way home. I had spent half the day creating a shopping list in my mind. We'd have bread and sausages and potatoes and maybe a chocolate or two. Even cabbage sounded good.
He wiped his sweaty hair from his face. "We have to make a choice. It's either the food or another shovel."
"Isn't there one we could borrow?" I asked. "There were other shovels in the storage beneath our apartments. Someone will loan one to us."
"Once we're gone, the Stasi will look at everyone who might've been involved. If we borrow someone's shovel, the Stasi will say they helped us escape."
"What if we steal one?" I spoke the words quietly, almost hoping he wouldn't hear them.
But he did. He turned to me with his eyes wide. "Are you suggesting that, Gerta?"
I had stolen the pulley, though I didn't really consider that a crime since it clearly hadn't been used in years and didn't appear to belong to anyone. But to steal a shovel from our own building, that was different. It was wrong and I knew it. The question was whether I could live with it.
"How many laws have we broken already?" I asked him. "We've lied to the state and to the police and to nearly everyone we've spoken to in the last month. You said yourself that isn't wrong, not for this tunnel. We accepted the hand tools and seeds to work on a garden we have no intention of harvesting. Worst of all, we are right now sitting directly below the Death Strip! What does a stolen shovel matter at this point?"
Fritz shrugged. "I suppose it matters to the person who owns it."
I leaned against the wall and listened to the growl of my stomach. If we used the last of our money to buy a shovel, starvation was becoming a very real possibility.
"Some of what the state teaches is important," Fritz said tiredly. "We do have a responsibility to be good citizens. Even if we are rebelling against some of their laws -- maybe even their biggest law right now -- that doesn't mean we can rebel against everything that is right. They are also telling the truth when they say there are people in the west who will take advantage of others for their own profit. Some people use capitalism to help themselves and let the rest suffer for it. I guess what I'm asking, Gerta, is if that's who you want to be when we're free. Are you willing to sacrifice other people if it means you can get ahead?"
I closed my eyes and let only a single tear escape the corner. "No," I mumbled. "No, of course not."
So we wouldn't steal the shovel. And the rest of Papa's money would buy a new one and we'd pray that it held together until the tunnel was completed.
I was still hungry, though. Really hungry. I just didn't say it.
There we sat for some time, mourning the loss of the shovel and collecting our strength to go home to an empty apartment with empty cupboards. Filthy, exhausted, and alone.
No, not alone. Footsteps had just landed on the floor of the air-raid shelter, I was sure of it.
Fritz had heard it too. We got to our feet and he pressed me behind him, then held out the broken shovel handle as a weapon.
Whoever was on the other end had a flashlight -- we saw glimpses of the light as it bounced from one wall to another. Then it turned in our direction and the footsteps came toward us.
I didn't move, I didn't breathe. We both already knew that Fritz's broken handle was useless against the weapons likely heading our way.
Then the light rounded a bend in the tunnel and a man's voice ordered us to raise our hands and to drop the stick. His light shone directly in our faces, preventing us from seeing who he was.
But it didn't matter. I recognized the voice from yesterday.
"So, the Lowe children are doing something far more than gardening." Officer Muller lowered his flashlight, allowing us to see his face, cast in hard angles of light and dark shadow. In his other hand, a glint of metal was reflected. His gun. "Even this far below ground, I'm sure you know where you are right now."
The Death Strip.
Caught together, hanged together. -- German proverb
It felt like hours before any of us spoke. Muller took his time investigating the tunnel, running his hands along the sides and poking at the ceiling to check how solid it was above us. A part of me hoped the ceiling would collapse directly above him, but of course that meant we'd be trapped too, and the Death Strip would cave in on all of us. Not much of a solution.
"You've gone a long way," Muller said. "Farther than I expected."
"You knew we were tunneling?" Fritz asked. "How?"
"I knew there was a reason your sister didn't want me getting close to this building. But I didn't really become suspicious until I looked inside the b
asement yesterday. I saw the pulley and the bucket and asked myself why so much fresh dirt might be in a building that is supposed to be closed up."
I could've kicked myself, or preferably, kicked him. I knew he'd gotten close to the windows but never thought he'd seen so much. In hindsight, that was plain stupidity on my part, just childish optimism in the face of reality.
Muller ordered us out of the tunnel, but told us not to climb the ladder up to the surface. Fritz dropped the shovel handle, then walked first with his hands held high, and I followed. Muller went last, keeping the gun trained on us. If he shot, I hoped he would get me first. Maybe that was selfish, but I didn't want to go through watching it happen to Fritz, knowing I was next.
Once we were in the shelter, Muller ordered us to sit on the small bench. He stood beside the ladder, and here, under a little more light, I saw the gun all too well. "No trial is required before I shoot you," he said. "You are clearly guilty of attempting to leave the country."
Yes, we were. Not even the best-told lie could get us out of this one.
"I was first alerted to you by a woman who lives in your building, Frau Eberhart. Do you know her?"
I knew her, and suddenly loathed her just as much as I did Officer Muller. Maybe that was unfair -- the Stasi would give her much-needed rewards in exchange for information, and after all, she was on the right side of the law, not us. But still, she had betrayed us and nothing was so low as that.
"Frau Eberhart says she first noticed your odd behavior in the week before school got out. Is that how long you've been tunneling?"
"Yes, sir." There was no point in denying that.
"And how long until you expected to cross into the west?"
"There's no way to know," Fritz said. "We're not sure how much farther we have to go, or what conditions we might encounter along the way."
"You're not the first to attempt an escape through tunnels," Muller said. "Why did you think you would succeed when nearly all attempts have failed?"
"We didn't know if we'd get across," I said. "We only knew that we had to try."
"Ah, but now with two shots of my gun you will be nothing but failed escapees. Your bodies will be buried in shame, your mother will be arrested and likely jailed, and your names will be published in every newspaper and throughout all history as traitors and cowards."
"We're neither, sir." Fritz held his head up, clearly determined that if Muller was going to shoot us, it wouldn't be with us acting ashamed for what we had done. "Our country is Germany -- one country that should be reunited. We don't belong to Moscow or to the west. We belong to ourselves and I have never betrayed that. This tunnel has taken every ounce of courage we have. We're not cowards."
That seemed to entertain Muller. "And so how would you have yourselves described? As heroes? Are you role models to other young people who are living behind the wall?"
"We're a brother and sister who only want a chance for a better life," Fritz said.
"And to bring our family back together," I added. "Please let us go, forget you've seen us here."
"I am a uniformed officer of the state and could no sooner forget that tunnel than forget my own name." His attention wandered upstairs as a gust of wind blew through the boards in the basement. It provided enough of a distraction that I wondered if Fritz and I could rush at him and overcome him, and then ... well, I didn't know what. We weren't murderers and we couldn't hold him here. We didn't even have enough money to offer him a respectable bribe.
But we did have a tunnel.
Muller wore a gold wedding band on his left hand. He had a wife. On his left shoulder there was a small milk stain. From a burping baby perhaps?
He looked down into the tunnel again. "Who else is coming with you?"
"No one," I said. Half of East Germany could be lined up to come with us and I'd still deny it. I wouldn't rat them out the way Frau Eberhart had done to us.
"What if others wanted to come?"
Beside me, Fritz looked confused, perhaps wondering if that was a trap to get us to reveal other names. But I didn't think so.
"They'd be welcome," I said. "You could --"
"No, I couldn't!" But from the tone of his voice, I knew Muller had already thought about it, maybe even before he came here. That's why he'd come alone. His eyes flicked back to the tunnel, then over to me. "I'll go up the ladder first. You will follow next, and then your brother. If you try any tricks, I will bury you here."
He turned to leave, but I darted forward to grab his arm, not to fight but only to stop him from leaving. He reacted by shoving me to the ground and aiming his gun directly at me. I raised my hands in the air and closed my eyes tight, waiting for him to squeeze the trigger.
"Would you die for this tunnel?" he yelled. "Risk your lives, your family, for a run to the west?"
"Don't shoot her!" Fritz answered. "This was my idea, not hers."
I opened my eyes again to protest but still felt paralyzed in the sights of his gun. At least he hadn't fired it yet. With a trembling voice, I said, "Bring your family and come with us. Bring them to the west."
Muller's eyes widened. "Escape? How dare you suggest --"
"There is more for your family in the west. It's the life you would want for them, if you could choose."
Fritz caught on to my idea. "You don't have to dig, but you might be able to keep other officers away from this area. Then when we're ready to leave, we can put out a signal, letting you know that the tunnel is completed."
Muller wasn't convinced, but at least he was thinking. "My wife wants to go to America. She has family there."
"We need another couple of weeks," Fritz said. "Maybe more if we run into problems, but I can promise with all my honor to give you the chance to come."
For the first time, Muller lowered his gun. "What's the signal, then?"
I spoke up. "We'll leave a shovel in the dirt outside. A sign that we no longer need it."
A long silence followed. Muller spent most of it staring into the tunnel, and I wondered if he was picturing himself and his family running to freedom. I'd done that myself plenty of times.
Finally, he said, "I will write in my report that I investigated and saw nothing suspicious. But I may return tomorrow to arrest you."
I tried to catch Fritz's eye to see what we should do. Muller's terms were terrible. At best, he would do nothing to help, and at worst, he would get us killed. What other choice did we have, though? We had nothing else to bargain with.
Fritz reached out a hand to shake Muller's. Irritating me even more, he thanked Muller. He actually thanked him for agreeing not to kill us ... yet.
Muller turned to leave and then said, "Whatever I decide, you must hurry. With or without my help, this tunnel will be discovered soon. If I come with the group who discovers you, I will shoot just as quickly as the others, so do not look to me for sympathy in that moment. All I can do is warn you now. Your biggest enemy is time."
I wasn't sure about that. Right now, Muller seemed like a pretty big enemy to me.
Fritz only nodded and said, "We're going to escape, and your family is welcome when we do. Watch for the shovel outside. We'll cross that same night."
An appeal to fear never finds an echo in German hearts.
-- Otto von Bismarck, creator of the German Empire
Fritz and I went straight home afterward. Muller's visit had left both of us with legs of jelly, and nothing he had promised was very comforting. As far as I was concerned, wherever we went now his gun was still pointed our way. Another dreaded reality to add to my growing list of worries.
As we walked home, Fritz pointed out the good news that Muller would probably come with us for the escape. Otherwise he could have just shot us there and earned himself a fine promotion for discovering that tunnel. I suppose that was how Fritz's and my thinking had evolved: The fact that we hadn't been shot and left to die was the morbid way in which we cheered ourselves up.
We passed by a bakery offering old b
read for a single Ostmark. Fritz said we could spare that much and bought some for each of us, which we munched on as we walked. It was dry and wouldn't go very far in helping our hunger, but it was better than nothing.
Frau Eberhart was in front of our apartments as we approached, so Fritz and I crossed the street and pretended to look in the storefronts there until she went inside. We'd go to any extreme to avoid her in the future.
It was a long night afterward for me. As tired as I felt, too much had happened that day -- with Anna and what was surely the final cut in our friendship. The broken shovel. And then Officer Muller. If we had been found by anyone else, Fritz and I might be dead right now. Maybe that was still our fate. If Muller could figure out what we were doing, others could too. It was only a matter of time.
By morning, though, I felt a little better. We shared the last of what little food was in the apartment, and then reminded each other that a new shovel was more important than a full belly. After buying the shovel, we made our way to the Welcome Building. It looked just as it had the night before, but different to me somehow. Because now our secret wasn't ours alone, and any safety I had felt in working on this quiet, unused road was gone.
Fritz rubbed my head. "Today will be better, Gerta. I'm sure of it."
I frowned back at him. "There's a pit in my stomach."
"Well, there's nothing in mine, so consider yourself lucky."
I didn't like his joke, not at all. "I'm serious, Fritz. Something bad is going to happen."
"It's only leftover worries from yesterday." Fritz stared at me a moment too long, as if trying to convince himself of his own words. "Now let's get to work."
Things went fine for a few hours. I was in the garden, clearing more weeds, and had already emptied out a lot of the dirt from the basement. But then I saw Fritz at the basement window, hissing at me to come inside, and to hurry. His eyes were so wide, I could see the whites from here.
The reason for the pit in my gut.
I dropped the spade and hurried for the building, careful not to make it look like anything was unusual, if anyone was watching. But when I ducked inside, Fritz had already returned to the shelter, and I breathlessly raced to follow.